


Cold

by raindropwaltz



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, i am obviously the best at titles, kylo ren is irritated about everything, that 'rey is sick' fic no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 07:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10079678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raindropwaltz/pseuds/raindropwaltz
Summary: Honestly when you've been on a desert planet for upwards of fifteen years, everywhere else seems just a little chilly.Alternately: that one time Kylo Ren nearly went back home just to lecture the Resistance on healthcare.





	

It wasn’t the first time he’d felt it.

It was a strange sensation, being in his head and yet a part of someone else, while at the same time they were a part of you…words didn’t seem to quite do it justice. He felt her happiness from time to time, he felt her frustration and her exhaustion. She was training, somewhere, but every so often he could feel it, more acutely than when they had been face to face, that she was veering towards the darkness herself. No matter how he tried to figure it in his head it was the same thing: there was a link between he and the scavenger.

_Rey_ , something echoed in his consciousness, a whisper and a sensation and a sudden image of her. Yes, Rey. No matter what she called herself or where she was, he felt her-–and at the moment, she was sick.

It had started as a slight sort of twitch at the back of his mind. Cold-–cold cold cold–-the jerk reaction of a sneeze. The strange sensation of a sore throat without any **real** pain. At first he’d thought perhaps he was coming down with something and had just gotten himself a supplement from the medbay, but that hadn’t been it. No, instead it had just given him a sore stomach for a day from overdose of vitamins and a headache both from the overdose and from the fact that he’d just done this to himself for _no kriffing reason._

It wasn’t until he was roused from sleep in the wee hours of the morning by a very violent attack of tremors that he tried to focus on just what was going on before getting out of bed. Kylo Ren lay in his bed in the dark, eyes shut, trying to pinpoint what was happening with him–-for a moment he got nothing, but then suddenly he was somewhere else entirely.

It was cold, and wet, and windy, and it was so hard to get warm and he’d been training so hard and he was so tired and everything ached…but not him, her. _Rey_. He felt her aching muscles and her cold sweat and her burning skin despite all of it and for a brief moment he felt pure rage spiking up in him that _this_ was what was to blame for all of his recent irritation-–but then he could see her lying there in the hovel of a dwelling she was in (wherever she was; later on he would kick himself for being too tired and distracted to actually discern anything from his projected surroundings) and he paused. Crouching down beside her, he looked her over and knew: she was sick. Very sick, enough to warrant medical attention, though he wasn’t in any position to really provide that, he gathered easily enough. Without realizing what he was doing he’d reached out to touch her face, to brush her hair away from her damp skin and feel her temperature, but he wasn’t really ‘there’ and so all it succeeded in doing was giving him a strange ghost of a feeling in his fingertips and rousing her from her fitful sleep.

She looked dazed, alarmed and then confused about what she was seeing.  
“You…” So then she could see him as well. He leaned back on his haunches some and regarded her a bit dryly.  
“Me.” He was tired enough at the moment that he couldn’t think of much else to say.  
“What…how…what are you…doing here?” Her voice was ragged from a sore throat and cracked when she spoke, keeping her voice at a bare whisper. He gave her a flat look.  
“Somehow you being sick has begun to affect me as well. Now I’m…” He gestured flippantly around them, “Wherever this is…thanks to you.” She was sick and still managed to look offended.  
“Thanks to _me?!_ ”  
“Obviously you’ve called me here by means of the Force. Otherwise I’d still be asleep-–so thank you for that. It’s disgustingly early, if you weren’t aware.”  
“This must be _so_ inconvenient for you.” Her voice was dripping with scathing sarcasm, rough though it was. He frowned.  
“Considering I have a galaxy to help administrate and I am losing sleep because a scavenger is ill, yes.”

Rey began to cough a moment later, turning over to try and bury her face in her thin pillow. Her whole body shook from the coughing; Kylo could feel it in his own frame, even. She was feverish, cold and hot at the same time. He glanced around the room, surveying the sparse ‘decor’ instinctively until his eyes found a thick rug.  
“Get that rug, use it with your blanket.” He directed, nodding at it. Rey looked confused.  
“What?”  
“The rug. Use it as a blanket. You need to get warm.” His tone was clipped now; it was late and he was tired and getting irritated. Somehow, it was frustrating him even more that he couldn’t actually help her.

Shakily, Rey sat up and managed to get the rug to slide across the ground to the side of the bed so that she could drag it up over her blanket. It was thick and dirty from being on the floor, but he was right, it did make her warmer. Still, it wasn’t as soft as her blanket and didn’t move near so easily, so she felt a bit trapped under it. She’d never had to try and get warm before. Jakku was arid and constantly hot, everyone there fought to find somewhere cool. She started coughing again, huddling up some under the heavy layer over her now.  
He’d stood up by now and watched her do this, wondering why he wasn’t back in his own head already, but something was keeping him here. The room was cool and the air felt somewhat damp-–no wonder she was feeling so ill. For a moment he found himself wondering just where she was; if this was a Resistance base then they were worse off than he’d imagined. Rey shivered again and he glanced back at her, huddled in her bed.

Everything was silent for a long moment until she coughed again, trying to cover her mouth with her hands. He could see what she was seeing for a moment. Everything was different here, it was cold and wet, nothing like Jakku, Jakku was so hot and dry, she’d never been somewhere like this, she’d been training and she needed rest, but she couldn’t get warm…  
He was quiet, thinking about this. She’d grown up on that wasteland Jakku-–for years that was all she’d known. Now she was in a completely different climate and she didn’t know what to do. Had those idiots with the Resistance sent her off like this without proper instruction or means to take care of herself?

He hadn’t realized she was looking at him all the while now as well. Her voice broke the silence again.  
“I didn’t mean to call you here. I didn’t…know that I could do that.”  
“You’re untrained. And now you’re ill, too.” If she hadn’t felt like she was hallucinating this entire thing she might have believed she heard a bitter edge to his voice.  
“Well…I would just send you back if I could.” He raked a hand through his hair, scowling.  
“Go back to sleep. That might help this.” She was quiet again for a minute, and then just settled in some, curling up. Still cold. Still shivering. She wanted to sleep, he could feel it.  
Just as he could feel this…situation…starting to flicker around him. She was trying to sleep, she was so tired, she wanted to rest, but the cold and her sick pain was making it hard to drift off. Things faded some for a moment, and briefly he thought she’d finally fallen asleep, but then there he was in her tiny room again, watching her lie there huddling under a scraggly blanket and a rug for warmth. Finally, wordlessly, he focused on her, and in their shared vision he climbed into bed with her, wrapping his arms around her from behind.

The feeling wasn’t as pure as actual physical touch was; it was like a muted feeling, a strange synthetic sensation, but he could feel her skin warm some as he held onto her. She was stunned, but at the same time he could sense her relaxing; it was warm now.  
For both of them.  
Rey’s voice was quiet, hesitant, confused.  
“You don’t have to do this.”  
“No, I don’t.”  
His reply was deliberately glib and Rey would have been frustrated if she wasn’t so tired. Still, she found herself nestling closer, wishing the warmth was more real. Even though he was possibly systems away from her, he could feel the almost-sensation of her pressing against his chest. She felt…small…like this. Nothing like the girl he had faced back on the collapsing Starkiller, nothing like the girl who had resisted his probing and had blocked him from her mind. She was just Rey now, a human girl who was in a strange place and needed care, and while he might have felt frustrated about that he could sense frustration at her own weakness in her, too. She was strong, this girl. She’d been forced to survive for so long, and now she was weakened by a little chill. She’d escaped a First Order base, had defeated him, and now she was near incapacitated by being cold-–  
“Thank you.”

The reply startled him some. She seemed to sense it and suddenly there was an odd weak tug at his consciousness, as if she were trying to pull him closer, to make him more real to her.  
“ _Stop._ ” His voice was louder than he intended, more firm. The tugging slowly ebbed away but Rey had gone still. “Stop…stop doing that.” He sounded less sure this time. Of course he wanted her to stop. Of course he wanted this to stop. Of course.  
But Rey was somehow part of him, now. He’d told himself he had no reason to be here and he shouldn’t, it’s what he should have believed, but he could nearly feel her in his arms and he _wanted_ it, he wanted this, to help her-–someone had to, he reasoned, and if she were dead then what use would she be?

It was more than that. It had been more than that since he’d first seen her.

“You need rest.” He got out gruffly, feeling his arms tighten around her torso as if they weren't his own. “When you wake again, you need something hot to eat. I’d suggest a hot bath, but somehow I feel like that’s asking too much.”  
“Well forgive me for not having an entire star destroyer to traipse around whenever I like.”  
“You could have.”

There was silence again then. He felt himself go a bit still now, but he was telling the truth. If she’d just taken his offer, if she’d come with him–-  
“No. I couldn’t,” but there was a pregnant silence afterwards that almost suggested ‘yet’ in her voice. Before he could say much else, the strange connection holding them there together began to waver. Rey became less real to him, less present in his arms.  
“Find warmer clothing. I’ll bring it to you myself if I have to.” There was a murmur of a reply, but it sounded faraway and faded fast. Nevermind that he didn’t know exactly where she was.

Kylo Ren very abruptly found himself lying on his own bed aboard the Finalizer again. His chest felt warm, but the warmth faded quickly enough when he was aware of himself again. Rey was gone, but if he reached out enough he could feel her, asleep, but warm. He dragged a hand through his hair and let out a hard breath, rolling onto his back. Tomorrow he would try searching for her on his own.  
Or maybe the day after.

...He needed sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> definitely working out a lot of characterization kinks. grumpy kylo is one of my favorite kylos though.


End file.
